Paul O'Sullivan's turnaround was one of the stories of last season, but the Kiwi trainer has warned of a slow start to this term as the rebuilding project continues with a host of unraced horses in his rejuvenated yard.
After four seasons of languishing near the bottom of the trainers' championship, O'Sullivan produced 39 winners as the globetrotting feats of star sprinter Aerovelocity and the handler's highly regarded new assistant Pierre Ng Pang-chi helped to attract a flood of support from new owners.
O'Sullivan's output in 2014-15 was more than double the previous season and as offers to train stable transfers rolled in, the trainer made a conscious decision to fill his vacant stables with young, unraced stock instead.
The forward thinking strategy had a downside though, resulting in a slump at the end of last term as the newcomers were given time, and O'Sullivan anticipates things could be difficult for the first few months of 2015-16 as well.
"We made a choice for the long term over the short term and nearly half of our 60 horses, 28 of them, are unraced. It's exciting, but it leaves the other half to do all the racing in the first part of the season as the new horses come through," said O'Sullivan, who had just 125 runners for five winners over a 31-meeting stretch to close last season. "We still have 14 unraced horses about to come in from New Zealand at the end of September, so there will be some juggling there as well."
Stable star Aerovelocity, who hasn't raced since winning the KrisFlyer Sprint in Singapore, will follow a similar path to last year as he chases a Global Sprint Challenge bonus.
"We won't leave ourselves in this situation in the future, with this type of turnover. John Moore always says that the most new horses you want to have is 15. Still, I've been at the other end of the scale and it's no fun down there - I remember being down to 26 horses at one stage during the down times. This is a bit of a problem, but it is a good one to have."
O'Sullivan also chose a conservative race programming path for Aerovelocity, who became the first Hong Kong-trained horse to win Group One races in three different countries last season. His Group One wins in Japan and Singapore set the sprinter up for a US$1 million bonus had he won a Global Sprint Challenge race in England or Australia, but instead, O'Sullivan will stick to a domestic schedule peaking with an all-or-nothing shot at the bonus in the Hong Kong Sprint, a race Aerovelocity won last year.
"We will go through exactly the same races as we did with him last season: the Premier Bowl, one month into the Jockey Club Sprint and three weeks into international day," O'Sullivan said.
"He is now seven, but the great thing about him is that he is lightly raced - he has only had 18 starts and we only ran him six times last season."